Things are strange out here – kind of spooky actually. This is Strelitzia Nicolai – commonly known as the Giant White Bird of Paradise or Wild Banana. These can reach a height of twenty feet, and do, and the clumps formed can spread out to twelve feet or more. And there are no bananas. And there's no real bird there either. There's just strangeness. In the original Star Trek series you'd sometimes see these when Kirk and Spock found themselves stranded on the surface of a lush alien world – the guys at Paramount just had to step outside the door for that strange-new-world look to things. It's like that out here.

But in the shade below, the common daylily –

And nearby, the opposite of strange – a classic – a Mallard and Marigolds –

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Technical Note:

These photographs were taken with a Nikon D200 – the lenses used were AF-S Nikkor 18-70 mm 1:35-4.5G ED, or AF Nikkor 70-300 mm telephoto. The high-resolution photography here was modified for web posting using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software.